


I don't care for sugar if I can't have you

by prufrocks



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-26
Updated: 2011-12-26
Packaged: 2017-10-28 09:24:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/306396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prufrocks/pseuds/prufrocks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Rose meets a mysterious stranger in a dark hallway after a gig, she decides to take her musicianship to the next level: hipsterism. You've probably never heard of it. But losing her friends for a chance to be the next underground thing that no one knows about might not really be worth it in the end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I don't care for sugar if I can't have you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gazetteAuteur](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gazetteAuteur/gifts).



> Songs featured in this fic: Johnny Flynn and Laura Marling's [The River](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4QQ7HYYdWw); A-Ha's [Take On Me](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djV11Xbc914&ob=av2e) and The Head And The Heart's [ Rivers and Roads](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8yLwuDi2mA&ob=av2e).
> 
> Title is from Annie Lennox's _Walking On Broken Glass_.
> 
> I hope you enjoy this :)

The lights flicker once, twice, then flash on full-strength, sending waves of heat down to the stage. The crowd gives a hesitant little cheer, and Dave responds with a tap on the cymbals. Something clatters and clunks on the other side of the stage, and Rose closes her eyes, sending quiet good vibrations to her bandmates. The speakers hum with feedback as John grabs the microphone, and Rose hoists her violin onto her shoulder and takes a deep breath.

“We’re Strife Specibus,” John says, and someone in the tiny audience hoots and claps. “And we’re here to rock you into next week!”

Four taps of Dave’s foot on the bass drum and Rose is off, fiddling like her life depends on it. Jade comes in with her bass as Rose finishes her solo, plucking out a simple harmony, and John starts to sing in his warbly tenor.

They play a four-song set, finishing with a cover of Johnny Flynn and Laura Marling’s The Water. Dave grabs his guitar and he and Rose stand behind John and Jade as their voices float across the intimate stage. As Rose finishes playing them out at the end of the song, she thinks to herself that it’s their best cover yet.

The crowd breaks out into polite applause once the song is over.

They make quick work of breaking down the set, with Dave’s brother helping to ferry their equipment off the stage. “Let’s dance,” Jade shouts, as Bro Strider plugs his turntables in and the audience really begins to roar.

John follows her onto the dance floor, and even Dave jumps in after a moment’s hesitation. “You coming?” he asks Rose, and she shakes her head.

“Bathroom first,” she says, and slips out of the crowd.

The bathroom is lit with black lights, which make Rose’s pale skin and hair look ghostlike. She stands for a minute at the sink as the water runs over her hands, staring at her reflection, and then shuts the water off and leaves.

There is someone leaning on the wall outside the bathroom, a short man with a shiny bald head dressed in a well-fitting emerald green suit. “Rose Lalonde,” he says as the door slams shut behind her, and she raises an eyebrow.

“How do you know my name?” she asks him, wiping her hands off on her pants, unsure whether to go back inside and lock the door or run back into the club.

“I was watching your set. Your band is cute, but you’re better.”

“Thanks?” she says, desperately thinking of how to escape without offending him.

“You play a beautiful violin,” he says, staring at a pocket watch that he flips casually between his fingers.

“It’s an antique,” Rose says. The man seems mostly harmless, for the moment.

“A Stradivarius, right?” he asks, slipping the pocket watch back into his pocket and standing fully. “And you fiddle so well. Classically trained, I presume?”

“Twelve years,” Rose says.

He pulls a round black object out of his pocket and places it in her hand, closing her fingers around it. “Well, Miss Lalonde, I have a bit of a proposition for you. I’m an agent. I manage independent artists.”

The object is a magic 8 ball. Rose shakes it questioningly, and looks back at the man. “Like who?”

“No one you’ve ever heard of, unless you’re in the scene,” he says, ruffling her hair. “My number’s in the ball. Give me a call when you want to move on from this band to newer and better things.”

He turns and walks down the hallway, vanishing into the shadows around the corner.

Rose gives the ball a shake. _Doc Scratch: owner, The Felt agency_ , reads the soft green glowing words inside the ball.

Rose decides to bring up Doc Scratch in Bro Strider’s van on the way home that night. Dave and John are nudging Jade suggestively, but Jade bats their arms away, so Rose opens her mouth to speak.

“Have you-” she begins, at the same time that Jade blurts “I like-”

They both stop talking and look at each other. “You go first,” Jade says, turning pink.

“Have you guys ever thought that maybe we’re capable of better than a folk-pop cover band?”

The van is silent for a minute, except for Bro quietly beatboxing in the driver’s seat.

“I thought we liked being a folk-pop cover band,” John says. “It’s fun.”

“Yeah,” Jade says, “and we’re supposed to be all about having fun!”

“I just think we could be doing better things. Writing our own songs. Performing shows at underground clubs. Becoming the next new thing that no one’s heard of.”

Dave snorts. “We’re not fucking hipsters, Lalonde.”

“Yeah, you might not be,” Rose says.

“Where is all this coming from, anyway?” Jade asks, glaring at Rose. “I thought you liked being in a fun cover band with your best friends. I thought this is what you wanted!”

Rose pulls Doc Scratch’s magic 8 ball out of her pocket. “I met a man in the bathroom,” she explains. “He’s an agent. He thinks I’m good enough to be my own act.”

Dave raises an eyebrow. “Wait, you met him in the _bathroom_?”

“This guy sure sounds like bad news, Rose,” John says.

“Wow, your own act?” Jade nearly shouts, causing everyone to jump. “So, what, do you want to go off and play fiddle for a group that only puts out albums on eight-tracks and wax records? And what about us? Are we not good enough for you anymore?”

“Do I have to turn this van around?” calls Bro Strider from the driver’s seat.

“No,” the kids say in unison, and he shakes his head.

They spend the rest of the ride home in silence.

The next day at school is torture. Jade gives her the loudest silent treatment she’s ever gotten, storming off when Rose approaches and switching tables at lunch with a huff. John smiles at Rose sadly and follows Jade every time. Rose waits by Dave’s locker at the end of the day, like every other day, and tries to grab Jade and John’s attention as they walk past, but to no avail.

“Sorry,” Dave says to her, then takes a few steps back and follows too. Rose is left standing alone under a flyer for the school’s talent show and nowhere else to go but home.

\---

“Rosie,” her mother calls through her bedroom door.

Rose ignores her.

“Rose,” she says again, a pleading edge to her voice.

“Leave me alone, please,” Rose calls, not raising her voice at all.

Her mother retreats down the hallway.

The house is quiet for a while, and Rose knits angrily in her blanket pile, thinking of all the ways she’d fucked up. John is mad at her. Dave is mad at her. What stings worst of all, though, is the disappointed look that Jade had given her as she walked away that afternoon. She knows that Doc Scratch was wrong, that the music is never more important than her friends, but she doesn’t know how to fix it.

There is a knock on her door.

“Go away, mom,” she calls, unwinding the ball of green yarn.

“It’s not your mom,” says a somewhat familiar male voice through the door, and Rose stands up to open it.

The elder Strider brother is leaning against her door frame in a pink polo shirt, left eyebrow raised in a manner very reminiscent of Dave under a ridiculous pair of anime shades.

“Can I help you?” she asks.

He pulls an orange sheet of paper out of his back pocket. “I think you should sign up for this,” he says.

Rose takes it, examines it- it is the flyer for the school-wide talent show tomorrow evening. She crumples it up and tosses it on the ground. “I’m not doing that. The band broke up, haven’t you heard?”

Strider snorts. “I didn’t say the band, did I?”

She stares at him. “Why would I enter the talent show without the band?”

“Maybe you want to impress someone. Maybe you want someone to welcome you back into her life with open arms.”

Even with the stupid shades on, she can feel his gaze burning into her. It is strange that he used the word “her”. On second thought, it really isn’t. “Putting aside the reality that I am neither a talented public speaker or a good singer, how do you know this will work?”

He shrugs. “I don’t know. But you’re fifteen. When I was fifteen, I tried to seduce my psychologist with a boombox and a song.”

“And did it work?”

He gives her a long look.

“Oh,” Rose says, thinking of her mother and Dave and feeling a bit weird.

“What I was saying was, you’re fifteen. Everything works.”

“I’m not sure that’s very good advice,” Rose says.

“Of course it’s not good advice, it’s coming from me,” he says.

Rose mulls his plan over for a minute. “All right,” she says, “let’s say I go through with this. What would I even play?”

“The eighties were invented for a reason, kid,” he says, then pushes off the door frame and saunters back down the hall, humming a few bars of something that sounds suspiciously like a 1985 chart-topping Swedish pop hit.

“Thanks… dad,” she calls after him, and he gives her a tiny wave.

She spends ten minutes mentally wrestling with herself before she works out a coherent plan.

“What do you want, Rose?” asks John as he picks up on the third ring.

“I understand that you’re mad at me, but hear me out,” she says. She explains her plan in detail.

“What makes you think I’d help you with this?” he asks.

“I’ve come to my senses,” Rose says. “I’ve realized my mistakes. Doc Scratch’s weird notions of good music and fame and psychobabble are bad news, just like you said, and I understand that now. Trust me.”

“Oh, I definitely trust you,” John says, “I was just making sure you weren’t going to go all grim and dark on me again.”

“So you’ll do it?”

John hesitates.

“For Jade, if not for me,” Rose pleads.

“What makes you think this will work, Rose?”

She thinks for a minute. “Because this is definitely a John Hughes movie? I don’t know, how else would you solve a problem of the heart of this magnitude?”

“Well, I definitely wouldn’t invite her over to watch Fargo, as it turns out that’s the least romantic movie ever.”

“Who did you try that with?” Rose asks, curious.

John evades the question. “So, come over to my house in an hour and we can practice, okay? Bye,” he says, and hangs up.

Rose gathers every bit of stupid courage she has and prints out a copy of the lyrics.

Thursday dawns clear and cold. Her mother drives her all the way to the school, giving Rose a squeeze on the shoulder as she gets out of the car. “Good luck,” she says, and Rose thanks her.

“I love you, mom.”

“I love you too, darling.”

She watches the car pull away, and for the first time in a long time she wishes she could jump back inside.

The day passes without much incident, and it seems like before she’s even had the chance to blink it is 4:13 pm and she’s backstage setting up for the show.

“Forty-five minutes,” snaps Vice Principal Noir as the talent show participants group together behind the stage. “Now, I don’t give a shit who wins or who does what, but if any of you even thinks about saying the word ‘fuck’ in front of those parents and kids or makes any sort of motion resembling a boob-grab, I will personally dismember you with the broken sword I keep behind my desk.”

“Sir, yes sir,” the kids say in unison.

“Jeez, his speech gets scarier every single year,” John says as the huddle disbands.

“Well, it does seem to work,” Rose notes, as a ninth grader bursts into tears across the room. “Come on, let’s line up. I’m nervous as shit.”

John just laughs at her.

The first few acts pass- the crying ninth grader sobs through her rendition of “I Dreamed A Dream”, but the others are incident-free.

“Next up is Rose Lalonde, accompanied by John Egbert, singing a song,” Mr. Noir says into the microphone. The kids in the audience give a hesitant clap, and Rose is reminded of every other show their band has ever played.

“You ready for this?” asks John, settling down at the piano bench.

“Fuck, no,” Rose says, suddenly desperate and sweating from every orifice.

“Tough,” John says, smiling, and he begins to play.

The intro is practically over before it begins, and Rose is faced with no other option than to sing.

 _“We’re talking away,”_ she starts, _“I don’t know what I’m to say, I’ll say it anyway, today’s another day to find you.” _John is nodding at her, really getting into the melody, and Rose takes a deep breath and belts. _“Take on me, take me on, I’ll be gone in a day or so!”___

She looks into the audience and notices Dave and Jade, standing right in front of the stage, and that almost makes her lose her nerve. John helpfully repeats the bridge and she soldiers on, hitting the high notes right this time, the lights and John’s music thrumming together and creating a sort of reckless energy that she feeds off.

Finally it is over, and everyone is clapping, even Mr. Noir, and John is grinning widely at her, and Rose seeks out Jade’s face but Jade is gone, ducking through the students and pushing her way out of the auditorium. Dave shrugs and follows her, and Rose can’t help her shoulders’ dejected slump.

“Here,” John shouts over the applause, shoving something into her hands. “Jade made this for you.” He takes another bow and then absconds into the wings. She turns John’s gift over in her hands- it is a CD.

Rose’s mother is waiting outside the auditorium doors. “Do you not want to stay to the end?” she asks, and Rose shakes her head.

“Let’s just go home.”

“Fine,” her mother says, and follows her out the door.

When she gets home, Rose goes straight up to her room and slides the CD into her stereo, pressing play.

 _”Come on, Rose, sing with me,”_ Jade’s voice says, and Rose knows exactly what this is.

 _”I don’t want to,”_ she hears herself say, and there is a clunk in the background of the recording. Jade begins to strum her guitar and sing.

 _”All that I have is the river,”_ Jade sings, and Rose joins her on the next line: _”The river is always my home, Lord take me away for I just cannot stay, or I’ll sink in my skin and my bones.”_

Jade takes the high notes and Rose the low notes, and together they are a perfect harmony, and Rose realizes that she is crying, alone in her room. She lets the CD play itself out, then tucks herself into bed and cries.

After a while, there is a clinking noise as something hits her window, then another. She sits up in bed and peers outside.

Jade, Dave and John are standing in a circle under her window, waving.

Rose slides the window open, shivering in the cold winter air.

“We’re here to accept your apology, and say sorry too,” Jade says, pulling the strap of her guitar over her head. “So we’re going to sing you a song.”

They sing quietly, so as not to wake up her mother, and their voices are beautiful in the cold night, weaving together one over another. They’re singing a song by The Head And The Heart, a hipster band if Rose has ever heard one, and Jade’s voice especially sounds like it’s calling her home, especially when she starts the refrain at the end.

 _”Rivers and roads, rivers and roads, rivers till I’m with you,”_ Jade sings, and Rose bursts into tears again.

“I’m coming down,” she calls, once they’ve finished, and she pulls on a sweater and her slippers and runs through the maze of her house.

Dave and John both give her crushing hugs, and then they step back and let Jade grab her. “Thanks, guys,” Jade says, and the two nod and begin to walk away.

“That was beautiful,” Rose calls after them, and they wave and slide into John’s dad’s car.

“I’m sorry I yelled at you in the van,” Jade says.

“I’m sorry that I got hoodwinked by someone who’s probably a scam artist and tried to break up our band,” Rose says.

“I’m sorry I didn’t stay after your truly stunning performance tonight to tell you how well you did,” Jade says.

“I’m sorry I never realized how beautiful you and I sound together,” Rose says.

They hug tighter, and something occurs to Rose.

“You started to say something in the van that night, when I so rudely interrupted you about Doc Scratch,” Rose says.

Jade nods.

“What was it?” asks Rose, who is half sure that she already knows.

Jade plants her lips right over Rose’s instead of answering.

“I like you too,” Rose says, when they finally come up for air, and Jade bursts into laughter. Rose pulls Jade into the house by her sweater cuff, and they run as quietly as possible up the stairs to Rose’s room, humming _Take On Me_ under their breath.

-fin-


End file.
